


Middle Ground

by Sparcina



Series: Gotham at Night [11]
Category: Gotham (TV)
Genre: Developing Relationship, Dirty Talk, Frottage, M/M, Multi, Pining, Power Play, Relationship Negotiations, Season/Series 05, Sexual Tension, common pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-13
Updated: 2019-11-13
Packaged: 2021-01-30 08:02:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,373
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21424897
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sparcina/pseuds/Sparcina
Summary: Harvey couldn’t say which of them figured it out first, but one day, Cobblepot shot him a glance over the blueprints he’s discussing with Jim, and Harvey realized that they both wanted the same thing.Or rather, the samesomeone.
Relationships: Harvey Bullock/Jim Gordon, Harvey Bullock/Jim Gordon/Oswald Cobblepot, Harvey Bullock/Oswald Cobblepot, Oswald Cobblepot/Jim Gordon
Series: Gotham at Night [11]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1476773
Comments: 12
Kudos: 51





	Middle Ground

**Author's Note:**

> I have nothing against Ed, seriously. It’s just that Harvey and Jim are very possessive of Oswald, as far as my muse is concerned ^^’

Harvey couldn’t say which of them figured it out first, but one day, Cobblepot shot him a glance over the blueprints he’s discussing with Jim, and Harvey realized that they both wanted the same thing.

Or rather, the same _someone_.

Well, it wasn’t as though he hadn’t had his suspicions. He swallowed another insipid sip of his watered-down coffee with a grimace, wishing he could steal caffeine rations without getting tormented by that guilt a single look from Jim would shove down his throat.

(He wished Jim would shove other things down his throat.)

(Jim stirred lots of feelings within lots of people. The kind of feelings that made someone do very reckless things to keep a fragile status quo.)

(Especially within him… and that little fucker, apparently.)

Cobblepot’s puppy love for Jim Gordon was the kind of secret everybody pretended not to know, but really, everyone and their mother was well aware that if push came to shove, the Penguin would beg to be pushed _and _shoved against one of the walls Jim so often slammed him into. Nobody, however, suspected how much deeper that loyalty ran, or the strength of the desire brimming around all snarly edges.

Nobody except Harvey, that is. And apparently Cobblepot was the only person who knew of Harvey’s repressed feelings for his partner, which proved that his life still sucked on such a fine afternoon.

By the time Cobblepot excused himself to go wreak havoc in a more discreet neighborhood (or kill an insubordinate lieutenant away from Jim’s watchful eyes), Harvey had decided that this caffeinated water tasted like shit. He leaped out of his chair as soon as Cobblepot was out of view and made some excuses of his own about checking the archives for more blueprints.

Cobblepot’s limp was awfully convenient, at time. Not that it slowed the man that much. Still, Harvey caught up with him quickly enough. Must be the forced regime he was undergoing, because all that grease and sugar he liked sure didn’t go hand in hand with fitness. 

“Hey, Penguin.”

Cobblepot swirled around to face him, annoyance already plain on his sharp features.

“What do you want?”

Harvey unhooked his thumbs from his belt and leapt into action. He could be quick when he put his mind to it, and soon he had the sneaky asshole pinned to a concrete wall.

“Release me this instant, Detective Bullock!”

“No can do,” Harvey sing-songed, and nudged a knee between the mobster’s thighs to stop all of his squirming.

The silence returned.

Slowly, Harvey let out a long, slow breath.

What if part of him enjoyed the heat of that warm body against his? Cobblepot was all sharp angles, with or without one of the thousand knives he loved to conceal on his person, but it’d been a while, okay? To put it simply, his mind had dilemmas that his body did not (or something like that). He understood where Cobblepot came from, and no matter how much Jim shed his outsider’s skin a little more every day to embrace the lighter layers of darkness making up life in Gotham, he would never truly understand the city and live the way Harvey could and did.

Jim might find Cobblepot’s delicate features and piercing blue just as entrancing as Harvey did, tugging sharply at that silky black hair to get the smaller man’s head at the angle he wanted, one side of his pale face pressed to the wall. He might even derive a satisfaction similar to Harvey’s own as Cobblepot’s body became entirely _his _to control for the duration of their little chat, but he would certainly not feel his loins stir up at the prolonged contact of their bodies, at Cobblepot’s complete helplessness… or would he get hard in response to those soft whimpers, like Harvey did right now?

(Was Cobblepot anything more than a convenient proxy, a _vessel_, for his repressed fantasies?)

(Better yet: was _his _manhandling doing it for Cobblepot, a strong presence at his back, a pale imitation of Jim Gordon claiming his body?)

“Don’t you ever…” He trailed off, squeezing his own eyes shut lest he did something like admit to what they both knew already. (Or worse, embrace his sudden desire to ravish Cobblepot so fucking _good _he would be ruined for anyone else, even Jim.) His thoughts were spiraling out of control, and he couldn’t _remember _if Jim ever looked at Cobblepot like there was unexploited potential. Angry at Cobblepot (but mostly at himself), he grabbed the mobster’s shoulder and turned him around. Cobblepot’s shoulders felt fragile in his hands, so many delicate bones he could break with just a little more pressure. Bird’s wings. “Don’t you _ever_ think you own him,” he ground out.

Cobblepot let out a sharp exhale as he tilted up his pointy chin. “No one could _ever_ truly own him, Detective. Not even you are good enough for him.”

Harvey felt the sharp pang of a blade between his ribs and wanted to smack himself. Not because of the blade, though. Well, not only.

He could only blame the intensity of Oswald’s gaze (the freaking understanding therein) for the bit of oversharing that came next out of his mouth.

“He’s gonna get himself killed if he goes on like that. He doesn’t eat enough. Doesn’t sleep.”

Cobblepot shrugged, which wasn’t exactly easy with his shoulders pressed into the wall. “Attach him to his own bed, then.”

_Ha. _“Wouldn’t you like that, uh?”

Jealousy spiked in Cobblepot’s eyes, sweeping away every pretense at indifference. “You have no idea what I would like.”

That was a lie, and they both knew it. Harvey could see his own fantasies reflected in Cobblepot’s eyes, and surely the little fucker could see the same?

The same possessive gleam he fought so hard to tame.

“Don’t I?” Harvey would blame the lack of food and sleep later for the casual glide of his hand down Cobblepot’s throat, the easy way it splayed daringly over the other man’s frantic heart. Lower, Cobblepot’s blade went through his vest and shirt, grazing the skin underneath.

When Harvey leaned further into the mobster’s body, the sharp blade didn’t go any further.

Smiling inwardly, Harvey released one shoulder to roughly snatch the other man’s chin. His thumb ghosted over Cobblepot’s lower lip. Warm. Wet. He could hear his own heart pick up speed as his enemy’s heart hammered under his palm. Cobblepot’s eyes pulled him in, magnetic, a heady challenge swirling in their depths.

He licked his lips. His throat felt suspiciously dry. “You want to distract him from his work with the filthiest kiss in your repertoire. You want him to want _you _enough to drag you to some dark corner of the precinct and fuck you so good you’ll be left with a much worse limp.” The Penguin might have many flaws, but _fuck_ was he deliciously responsive, squirming and gasping under Harvey’s verbal assault.

(_Deliciously, _really?)

(Really.)

Angry at himself, Harvey pitched his voice lower still. “You want to be so full of his cum you’ll be leaking all over his pristine desk, want to _beg _for him to press it all back in and plug you up so that with every step, you remember _who owns you_.”

Cobblepot turned scarlet. “Shut up!”

“You’d love for him to shut you up with his cock, wouldn’t you?” Harvey crooned in his ear, moving his hand lower and lower until he had Cobblepot’s thin dick throbbing against his palm. He dug his heel into the other man’s groin, hard, relishing the stuttering thrusts of Cobblepot’s hips. “He’d be nice about it, of course,” he drawled, “but what you really want is for him to fuck your face until your jaw ache and your throat _burns_. You want him to fucking use you until he can’t think straight, until he foregoes all those good manners of his and just take what he wants, shoves his dick down your throat and hold your face to feel it through your skin, calls you a fucking whore. And you’d like that. You _like _that,” Harvey rasped, massaging Cobblepot’s fully hard cock through his fancy trousers without any kind of finesse (not that Cobblepot seemed to need finesse). “The way I see it, you wanna be _ravaged_.”

Cobblepot stilled. For a split second, Harvey thought he was going to be gutted where he stood, but the blade vanished and the mobster moved lightning fast. The acute pain in his throat punched a grunt out of him.

But he’d never been so good at backing down, even when self-preservation would call for it.

“You have that _ache _inside of you…” He gasped as the pain grew, as Cobblepot’s eyes turned even darker. “And you’re fucking convinced that only he can fill it, only he can give you pleasure and clarity both.”

Cobblepot arched an unimpressed brow. It might have worked better if he didn’t look seconds away from pouncing on Harvey, and not (only) to kill him mercilessly.

“What about _you, _Detective?” he crooned. “You already _are _his private whore in all things except those you heart most desire.” A slender digit ventured between his asscheeks, and Harvey shivered. Hard. It was merely a suggestion, with clothes in the way and other barriers not so tangible, but it was enough to get him all hot and bothered… just like Cobblepot, who was staring at him with transferred hunger, cheeks red, lips parted like a sin waiting to be committed. “You take pride in your ability to fuck the ladies, but what you really want is for James Gordon to bend you over his own desk and take you raw.” That damn finger dug into the fabric of his pants, rubbing up and down slowly, a searing touch along his crack. “You would make love to him, put that filthy mouth of yours and whatever amounts for lube around here to good use, to make sure he feels absolutely no pain, only the utmost ecstasy, yet should the roles be reversed…” A second digit joined the first and dug in the cotton of his pants, rubbing faster. “You wish to be split open on the Captain’s cock, because you’ll always bleed for him, will always feel undeserving, and that, detective, is because you _are_.”

“Not any less than you, fucker,” Harvey choked.

“Not any less,” Cobblepot agreed, tongue darting out to lick his lips.

Fuck, Harvey now wanted to see them stretched wide around Jim’s cock (or his own; he was so much bigger than the little minx, a fact corroborated every time Cobblepot sought friction against his open palm). He was 99.9% sure Cobblepot would give away his influence in the city for one minute at Jim’s feet. For the taste of him.

Harvey would give away a great many things for the same privilege.

“You want him to moan your name as he comes deep within you, Detective, and then watch you with hunger as you can’t sit still over the next few days, remembering. You want to be the only focus of his desire.”

“Pot, kettle,” Harvey gasped.

“Perhaps.” Cobblepot’s hand slid farther down, teasing his perineum. “But if letting you warm his cock every once in a while gets me what I want, I wouldn’t be opposed to a… deal, let’s say.”

Harvey was too shocked to react as Cobblepot firmly pushed him back. He stumbled, still reeling from the fantasies they’d both shared, nerve-endings ablaze and lust pooling in his groin. He knew it wouldn’t take much for him to come. Closing his eyes and thinking of Jim’s entirely too arousing self-righteousness…

… or Cobblepot kneeling at Jim’s feet, blowing the blond while Harvey jerked off to the show.

“A deal,” he managed, struggling to get his bearings back. That knowing look in the mobster’s eyes should have been dealt with a punch, but Harvey’s original intent had veered _way _off course. He took another step back. “How about we start with the tie?” He jerked a thumb at the dark green piece of silk fabric at Cobblepot’s neck.

The mobster’s eyes widened slightly.

“Oswald? Harvey? What are you two doing here?”

The two men turned towards Jim’s voice at the exact same time. They didn’t look at each other.

They didn’t need to.

“Just exchanging ideas.”

“Finding some common ground.”

Cobblepot steeped towards a disheveled, perplexed Jim. Harvey waited, ready to intervene, but Cobblepot was every bit as taken by Jim as he’d suspected.

“When was the last time you slept?” the mobster asked gently (gentler than Harvey had ever heard him), unknotting his tie with sure fingers, his earlier flush barely noticeable.

Jim’s whole expression shifted to suspicion, and then to bewilderment, as Harvey closed on him, too. Fear spiked in Harvey’s heart (fear to lose the priceless status quo between them, to overestimate the power of a dual seduction, to move too fast in the wrong way), but Oswald pushed his tie in Harvey’s hand and trailed a finger down Jim’s forearm, that piercing gaze of him darting back and forth between the two other men. “Come to bed.”

_Come, _not _go. _The distinction was important, and Jim didn’t pick up on it immediately, which said something about his lack of sleep, but just as Harvey was starting to panic (inwardly, of course), Jim’s cheeks turned pink.

He didn’t brush Oswald’s hand away.

He also didn’t flinch when Harvey threw caution to the wind and captured one of Jim’s wrists in his own. Cobblepot’s eyes met his. Harvey read desire there, but also worry, hope, defiance. He could still feel the mobster’s delicate shoulders at the tip of his fingers.

Could still feel the shape of his dick cradled in his palm.

“Harvey…”

Jim looked down at his trapped wrist, throat bobbing. A strangled noise that was part surprise, part something more, tumbled from his lips as Cobblepot reached for that perfectly chiseled jaw of his, brushing his thumb over the flushed skin. He could see the moment Cobblepot considered kissing him.

Read the question in those all-too-knowing eyes.

“Yes, buddy?”

Jim bit down his lip. Harvey met Cobblepot’s gaze once more.

In this, they understood each other perfectly.


End file.
